Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Galaxy Nexus Ban Overturned
Maow writes with word that the U.S. Federal Appeals Court has reversed a sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone. According to the decision (PDF), "Regardless of the extent to which Apple may be injured by the sales of the Galaxy Nexus, there is not a sufficient showing that the harm flows from Samsung’s alleged infringement. ...the district court abused its discretion in enjoining the sales of the Galaxy Nexus." The ruling also said Apple didn't do a good enough job showing that the allegedly infringing features were "core" to the Nexus's operation. The case centered on what is called "unified search," a method for bringing together search results from multiple places, such as a device's internal memory and the internet at large (U.S. Patent #8,086,604). "Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the ’604 patent—not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search."
People don't always buy phones because of specific features any more - they buy it because of the brand and because it is the latest model from that brand. People will buy the Nexus instead of the Apple regardless of the specifics of its search functions.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Free markets cannot exist, full stop. For instance, every time a companies actions have negative externalities - costs that affect others who aren't doing business with them - that distorts the market even if there's no government, because it means the free market price of their product doesn't reflect the actual cost. We see this with global warming; in fact that's one reason why libertarians are so keen on insisting that it doesn't exist despite the actual evidence. There's a related problem with (for instance) deep sea fishing called the tragedy of the commons - without government intervention the free market would wipe out fish stocks and drive fishermen into bankrupcy, despite the fact that this makes everyone else worse off.
That's before we even get into the problems with false advertising and food and drug mislabelling, and the consistent inability of the free market to deal with it, or natural monopolies and rent-seeking behaviour, or...